I noticed recently that each article in the articles section now has a new 2017 dated copyright notice posted. Does this indicate that control of the articles section has now been recovered and that new articles can be posted and old articles edited to update links? Or is this just a carry-over of an updated copyright date posted to the home page?

It has been about a year since the last discussion of the situation in the articles section. How are the plans progressing for recovering control or for establishing a new articles section?

PC

_________________Advice from the multitude costs nothing and is often worth just that. (EMD-1945)

rypnorg

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 11:39 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2004 2:31 pmPosts: 68

Preston,

The short answer: Yes

It's been nearly 6 years since the last article/brief was published. Since then Railway Preservation News has essentially been running on autopilot.

Between August 2006 and April 2007 the previous owner of the website had run out of space on rypn.org and had started hosting images on a third-party domain. A few years after that the third-party domain was transferred to new ownership and the images hosted on it for RyPN were lost.

We have searched though the files we inherited and scoured the archives of the web attempting to find these missing images. Unfortunately we have come up empty handed. In the hope of a miracle we are asking all visitors to this website to check and see if they might have saved any of those images over the years. Knowing that you were one of the original authors we were hoping you might consider helping us with this project.

If you have any of those files on hand and would like to help restore these articles please send pictures to articles@rypn.org and we will work to restore those images to their respective articles/briefs.

Alternatively the images cannot be rediscovered then after a period of time we will be forced to remove many of those articles as the photos played a crucial role in many of those postings.

Once we get the articles/briefs section cleaned up then we will look once again towards posting new articles.

RyPN Moderators

Atkinson_Railroad

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:54 am

Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:29 amPosts: 42Location: Michigan

This is a fascinating and sobering reminder about our reliance upon electricity as it relates to archives.

Stone and chisel appears to remain the best method of keeping a record.

John

PCook

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:26 am

Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 amPosts: 1360

Thanks very much for the update on the situation with the articles section. I still have a computer I was using in the 2007 time frame and will do a search for the missing images from my articles and send them along if they can be located.

PC

_________________Advice from the multitude costs nothing and is often worth just that. (EMD-1945)

Dave

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:09 am

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 amPosts: 5213Location: southeastern USA

I'll see what I can find. Might take a while.

_________________"Techies never minded eating bits and jots of their work. They were grit and grease inside and out and could turn a pile of junk into a magical kingdom."

Andrea Hairston

bigjim4life

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:50 am

Joined: Thu May 06, 2010 10:30 pmPosts: 583Location: Bucks County, PA

Additionally, as a bit of a heads up, next to the "Continue Reading..." link on the home page, is the date of October 10, 2017...

Unless you're operating out of a time machine that I don't know of, perhaps that can be quickly fixed? :)

All of the images for the EMD Technical Publications article were forwarded to the indicated e-mail address today. I have also located the images for the Winton 201A article. The scans originally used in the article could probably be improved and I plan on working on that and getting them to RYPN soon.

PC

_________________Advice from the multitude costs nothing and is often worth just that. (EMD-1945)

Overmod

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:41 am

Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 1:37 pmPosts: 865

As an opinion --

For heaven's sake, don't just 'delete' an article if you can't recover the images, even if the text of the article as written is heavily dependent on the missing content. Just note the article as being impaired/incomplete, and put a piece of boilerplate in its description calling for new authors to revise the content, write new equivalents, or find relevant illustrations for the crippled ones.

There are few enough articles, and little enough work, to be talking about deleting things for 'optional' reasons...

All of the images for the EMD Technical Publications article were forwarded to the indicated e-mail address today. I have also located the images for the Winton 201A article. The scans originally used in the article could probably be improved and I plan on working on that and getting them to RYPN soon.

Thank you very much for resubmitting those photos. We have received the email and will work on restoring those photos later this evening.

Overmod wrote:

For heaven's sake, don't just 'delete' an article if you can't recover the images, even if the text of the article as written is heavily dependent on the missing content. Just note the article as being impaired/incomplete, and put a piece of boilerplate in its description calling for new authors to revise the content, write new equivalents, or find relevant illustrations for the crippled ones.

Overmind, the only articles we are considering deleting were those that the original author had requested we remove. We have a few "articles" that are nothing more than photo essays with captions.

Unfortunately not, that was one of the first places we looked on the web. They have most of our photos, just not the ones hosted on the third-party domain.

PCook

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:51 pm

Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 amPosts: 1360

If the administrators have some ideas for what they want the articles section to be going forward, it would be very helpful if they could post some guidelines. This should include preferred size of articles and also any notes on preferred pixel size of images submitted in support of the articles. The original articles section was developed at a time when most computer screens were not larger than 1024x768, and the selection of image sizes was made accordingly to allow for margins and centering. If there are established column width settings for the articles section that dictate a preferred width of images it would be good to know what they are.

PC

_________________Advice from the multitude costs nothing and is often worth just that. (EMD-1945)

QJdriver

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 3:01 pm

Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 9:48 amPosts: 443Location: Byers, Colorado

I've got everything on disc, which I will LEND to Tommy Gears.

Thanks to RyPN for getting this going again, and thanks especially to Preston for lighting the fire....

Take Care & WORK SAFE

_________________At Your Service,
Sammy KIng

steaminfo

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:48 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2004 11:30 amPosts: 1090Location: Eagan, MN

I think that I have a stack of about 40 CD's that Hume sent me at some point after the transfer of RyPN. I don't think I've ever looked at them. I'll see if I can find them.

If the administrators have some ideas for what they want the articles section to be going forward, it would be very helpful if they could post some guidelines. This should include preferred size of articles and also any notes on the preferred pixel size of images submitted in support of the articles. The original articles section was developed at a time when most computer screens were not larger than 1024x768, and the selection of image sizes was made accordingly to allow for margins and centering. If there are established column width settings for the articles section that dictate a preferred width of images it would be good to know what they are.

This is still in the early stages of being discussed. Most of the moderators have not yet had a chance to talk about it. What we do know for sure is that for image sizes we would prefer to have the largest size available. The editors will then resize the image to the size required, there will no longer be a need for the author to do that.

The author only needs to worry about writing. The editors can worry about layout and the final image formats.

QJdriver wrote:

I've got everything on disc, which I will LEND to Tommy Gears.

Much obliged!

steaminfo wrote:

I think that I have a stack of about 40 CD's that Hume sent me at some point after the transfer of RyPN. I don't think I've ever looked at them. I'll see if I can find them.

Quite a number of years ago Hume Kading had offered a CD to supporters of RyPN that contained briefs and other editorials from 1998 to 2006. Those briefs were not hosted on the website because he had run out of space.

If anyone were to have a copy of this cd we would be forever in your debt if we could obtain a copy of that data. The intent would be to return those briefs to the website for everyone to enjoy.

PCook

Post subject: Re: The RYPN Articles Section

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:16 am

Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 amPosts: 1360

The set of images for the Winton 201A article has been sent to RYPN.

PC

_________________Advice from the multitude costs nothing and is often worth just that. (EMD-1945)

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